Episode 4

Confused?

Clueless?

Gourry’s Test Begins!

Gourry leaned back comfortably in the grass, a blissful sigh escaping him. He wasn’t sure where he was, and he wasn’t sure where Lina and the others were… but this was comfortable, and he was just going to rest here for a little while before getting up to find them. Usually Lina would find him first, so he wasn’t too worried.

“Ah… the bliss of ignorance, eh, Gourry?”

Gourry popped an eye open and looked over at Xellos. “Whatever. I’m just enjoying this for a moment before I have to go find Lina. Unless you know where she is…”

“She’s being tested right now. Just like you,” Xellos answered, folding his legs to sit with his staff across his knees.

“Tested?” Gourry said, sitting up. “But I haven’t studied, and I don’t know what the test is supposed to be on!”

Xellos sighed. When he had explained to the Powers That Be that testing Gourry was a waste of their time, they had asked for an illustration, a case in point as it were. What he hadn’t seen coming was that they immediately decided that he was correct, and should therefore be assigned to keep Gourry alive.

It was tedious.

Gourry was dumber than your average village idiot.

This might not be a bad thing.

Xellos looked over at Gourry. “So how dumb are you really, Gourry?”

“Huh?” Gourry answered, staring at Xellos.

Xellos hid another sigh and tried again. “Well, Lina’s always calling you dumb or stupid… I was just wondering if you were.”

“Well… if I am… I don’t know it, Xellos,” Gourry replied easily, leaning back into the grass.

Xellos facefaulted, the sweatdrop threatening to soak his collar. “Okay… do you even know what is going on right now?”

Gourry frowned in concentration. “Well, we’re sitting here in some grass… and Lina’s taking a test somewhere. I’d better let her finish the test before I go looking for her. I wouldn’t want to interrupt her… but how will I know the test is over? I don’t want to keep her waiting…”

Xellos almost gave in then and there. Not only was Gourry dumber than your average brick, the brick had more of a survival ratio. Given that, the brick probably had a longer life span.

“Gourry… don’t worry about it.”

Gourry looked over at Xellos. “I don’t know…” Something occurred to him and he looked at Xellos darkly, then leapt to his feet and drew his sword. “What have you done with her? Lina’s always saying not to trust you, so I won’t! Give her back, right now!”

Xellos floated to his feet and waved at Gourry. “Really, Gourry, this time it’s not me.”

Gourry lowered the sword slightly. “Really? Gosh, I’m glad about that. I mean, you’re the only person I know here, and I would hate to have to kill you. Then I’d be all alone.”

Xellos turned, staring out accusingly at the Powers That Be. “What does Lina see in this guy?” He muttered quietly.

“So… what brings you out here, Xellos?” Gourry asked, sheathing his sword and sitting back down.

Xellos took a deep breath, released it, and then turned back to Gourry sitting amiably in the grass. “You.”

“Me? Oh… am I lost? I don’t know where I am… so I must be lost. How nice of you to find me.” Gourry said, leaning back into the grass yet again.

That was it. Test over, as far as Xellos was concerned. “Come on, Gourry. We’re going back to town and get some food.”

“Food?” Gourry sat up. “Yeah, I’m hungry. Will we see Lina there? I don’t want her eating my dinner again.”

“No, Gourry, we won’t. So your dinner is safe.” Xellos replied, opening his dimensional gate that would return them to the Ruins of Kuroryu.

“Oh… that’s good. Just as long as Lina won’t get mad at me for eating without her.” Gourry said.

Xellos waved Gourry into the portal. “Everything will be fine, Gourry. Just don’t worry your blonde head about it.”

Xellos watched Gourry enter the portal and vanish, shaking his head.

“You weren’t to interfere, Xellos.”

Xellos opened his eyes and looked at the woman who had appeared before him. “Why waste the time testing him when you know that he will fail?”

She smirked faintly, tilting her head to look at him. “Indeed, a viable argument. Instead, then, perhaps this as a test…”

Gourry settled into the chair and looked at the menu. Wow. All this food and he didn’t have to share with Lina.

“So, what will you have, Gourry?” Xellos asked, taking a seat opposite him.

Gourry pondered for a moment, then indicated a page of the menu. “I think I’ll have everything on this page in double portions.”

Xellos nodded, looking at the waitress. “Did you get that?”

“Sure did. What do you want?” The waitress replied.

“Oh, I’ll have a little of the house special,” Xellos answered casually. “When did you start working here?”

“I work wherever I want. This was a… fortuitous job… so I took it,” she answered.

Gourry watched the exchange with a blank look, and when the waitress stepped off, he leaned forwards. “Who was that?”

“That? Oh, that’s just Luna. She tolerates me, but I think she’s really here to keep an eye on a few things.” Xellos answered with a wave of his hand.

“Luna? That name sounds familiar…” Gourry said, thinking it over. “Oh! I know! That’s Lina’s sister’s name!”

“And that is Lina’s sister.” Xellos replied.

Gourry turned to look at her, eyes wide. No matter how hard he looked, he just couldn’t quite make out her features. He thought that she was pretty, but beyond that, he couldn’t honestly say what color her eyes were… but her hair was dark. He was sure about that. But her smile, the shape of her nose… “Xellos… I’m having a hard time seeing her… something like one of Lina’s spells, right?”

Xellos looked at Gourry sharply. That was a fairly observant comment for the generally witless swordsman. “You see the blur around her?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of like looking at her through a glass of water. Why?” Gourry answered.

Xellos opened his mouth to reply, but Gourry put his hand up. “Xellos, that answer will have to wait. I’m afraid there’s a bigger problem than why I can’t see Luna.”

Xellos looked at Gourry. “Hm?”

The door flew open, and Gourry’s hand touched his sword. “Don’t move.”

Xellos’ back was to the door, so he couldn’t see the man standing in the door, silhouetted by the daylight. All he saw was Gourry draw his sword as he moved to the door.

“You’re here for trouble, and that’s my middle name.” Gourry said, approaching the door.

Without a reply, the man threw a dagger into the restaurant, aimed at Gourry, then dashed out into the center of town.

Gourry’s way was blocked by Luna, who had caught the dagger in one hand and gone to holler out the door. “No throwing knives in my restaurant!!”

Gourry stared as Luna walked towards the back, holding the dagger and shaking her head. “Honestly, you’d think they were all barbarians…”

Gourry stepped out into the town and blocked a well-timed blow from the unknown assailant with his blade.

The other backed off, glaring at Gourry and snarled “You’re in my way, kid.”

“I’m going to stay in your way until you tell me what’s going on,” Gourry replied calmly.

“There’s a man in that restaurant that I must kill,” came the reply.

“Oh. Well while that sounds reasonable enough, I need a little more. Why do you need to kill him?” Gourry countered, continuing to keep the other man at bay.

“He’s a Mazoku.”

“Mazoku? I didn’t see any mazoku in there,” Gourry said, deflecting the strike of the other’s blade.

“I’m afraid that he means me, Gourry,” Xellos said quietly, hovering beside the blonde swordsman.

Gourry paused to look at Xellos. “Oh yeah. I keep forgetting that you’re a Mazoku.”

“Gourry, you keep forgetting everything,” Xellos returned politely.

“Hey now!” The blonde swordsman stopped. “Do I? I mean, that’s a bad thought. If I forget it, how do I know what I know? I mean, I may have known what I knew… but if I forgot it, then I wouldn’t know! Would I?”

Xellos opened his eyes and looked at Gourry. Was he really that stupid?

Fortunately for him, Gourry’s diatribe on knowing what he knew had caught the bandit completely befuddled into a neat little mental trap. So. Gourry was good for a few things after all…

Gourry pondered some more. “So if I don’t know what I know… how can I be sure to know anything. Gosh. Maybe Lina –is- right! I could well be the idiot that she calls me to be. I just don’t know…”

Xellos facefaulted. There was nothing worse than Gourry on a quasi-circular logical thought. Gourry having a thought was a frightening thing… and Gourry caught up in a near-perfect trap of circular logic… was pure evil. Xellos started to become amused.

A slight wave of the mazoku’s hand, and Xellos was alone with Gourry, listening to every word that babbled from Gourry’s mouth.

“What do you think, Xellos? If I don’t know what I don’t know… what does that make me? What does that leave me knowing? Gosh! How do I learn what I don’t know? If I learn what I don’t know, do I then know what I know… or know what I didn’t know?”

Gourry was busy weaving a paradox of logic about himself so tightly that Xellos himself was hard-pressed to keep the straight look on his face. Nope. Gourry didn’t even notice the planar shift. Absently, the trickster priest waved his hand again, and they returned to the center of the town.

The (would be) attacker (no wiser of the planar shift either) kneeled before Gourry. “I swear before you, allegiance and protection for as long as I shall live. Thou art a wise man indeed to seek out that which he does not know.”

Both Xellos and Gourry stared at the little man, this pathetic example of sentience. He even made Gourry look intelligent.

Then Gourry blew it. “Um… yeah, sure…” he said. “I uh, guess.”

“That’s it! I give up! Elena, if you want to deal with this, then by all means do so! I’ve had it.” Xellos said, throwing up his hands and starting to walk off. “I say he neither passes, nor fails. Do what you will with him.”

Gourry stared at Xellos. “Who are you talking to? Where are you going? Don’t leave me here! We have to find Lina!”

“You can’t see Lina yet,” Xellos said as he continued to walk away.

“Oh yeah, she’s taking a test,” Gourry said, catching up to Xellos, the ex-bandit following close behind. “So what do we do know?”

“We wait,” Xellos said.

“Wait for what?” The bandit asked.

Both Gourry and Xellos turned to look at the bandit. “If you’re going to follow me, I may as well know your name,” Gourry said.

“Me? I’m not worthy of having a name. But I know you. You’re the Mazoku Xellos, and you’re Gourry Gabriev.”

Xellos and Gourry exchanged a look, and Xellos could have sworn he saw a modicum of intelligence behind the normally blank blue gaze.

“What do you want with us?” Gourry said.

“I… well… I don’t want to kill you. But my… er, that is, the one who tries to control me… well, she wants you dead, Xellos,” The bandit replied.

“Me? I’m afraid that dying just isn’t on my list of things to do right now, sorry.” Xellos bowed politely and turned away to continued towards the inn on the corner.

The bandit had only sworn allegiance to Gourry, not to Xellos, and so therefore saw nothing erroneous about taking off after Xellos with murder in his eyes.

Gourry took off after the bandit, his hand going automatically for the blade at his hip. “Xellos! Look out!”

Xellos turned to see the bandit following him, and Gourry chasing the bandit. This was not good. Dying certainly wasn’t on his agenda today, but Gourry was a bit too far behind the bandit for his taste.

Suddenly, Gourry was in front of the bandit, between him and Xellos, sword drawn. “I’m sorry, but you have to leave right now. Or I’ll have to kill you.”

The bandit looked at Gourry for a moment, then sheathed his own blade and nodded. “I understand. Forgive me, Elder.”

Elder? Xellos wondered to himself. What was that bandit talking about?

Gourry turned to look at Xellos, and suddenly, the Mazoku knew. Knew and understood the entire reason that Gourry was the way he was. Understood why Gourry seemed dumber than a brick, unable to comprehend the simplest of concepts. And understood why Gourry was far more than he appeared to be.

Gourry tilted his head and looked to Xellos. “What?”

Xellos simply shook his head. “You’ll see. Later. But now, it’s time to sleep. Come, the inn is this way…”

Gourry amiably followed Xellos into the inn, then up to his room. He didn’t know that as he fell asleep, the world around him shifted into dark nothingness.